Polar Bears and Auroras

This lesson was adapted from a 4th and 5th grade lesson on the wonderful art blog Lines, Dots, and Doodles. 


Students in pre-K through 2nd grade created these beautiful polar bear watercolor resists. They came out wonderfully! We used watercolor paper and tempera cakes. I taught the students how to create the effect of the aurora by using wet on wet technique. We used white oil pastel on the snow and added blue shadows to create contrast. A super fun, easy wintertime project even for the little ones!


Materials:
Black oil pastel
White oil pastel
Watercolor paper
Liquid watercolor or tempera cakes

Process:
Step 1: Draw the horizon line in the middle of the page with black pastel (we chose snowy hills for our landscape).
Step 2: Draw the polar bear from observation using photos in our classroom.
Step 3: Color the polar bear with white pastel. Encourage the blending of black and white to create gray shadows on the bear's body.
Step 4: Color a scribbly mark with white pastel on the hills.
Step 5: Paint using wet-on-wet in the sky area.
Step 6: Use blue and blue-green to create shadows in the snow area. The students observed the resist looked like "snow crystals."